Wild Rescue (20 page)

Chapter 81

I didn’t care what Plan B was.
I just wanted to do something.

Bryce totally caught me off guard. He burst out of our hiding place and turned on every light he could find. “You take upstairs!” he yelled.

I raced up, keeping a close watch on the patio door and the windows. I turned on all the lights in the bedrooms, and when I came out the radio and TV were blaring. The light coming from the house lit up the yard, and the noise was deafening.

“What are we doing?” I hollered.

He bolted into the kitchen and threw open the cabinets. “Letting them know we’re here. They’ll leave when they see what’s going on.”

“But don’t we want to catch them?”

“Not tonight,” Bryce said. He pulled out two huge boiling pots and handed me a wooden spoon. “Pretend it’s New Year’s!”

We beat on those pots like we were in a rock band. I’m not proud of it, but I imagined Liz’s face on my pot and whacked it even harder.

Bryce moved toward the window, something I wasn’t ready to do. His eyes grew wide, and he dropped his pot and spoon and hurried to the front door.

“What?” I screamed, but he was already outside.

I followed him into the yard and toward the barn. Taillights flashed as a trailer bounced down the dusty road.

“Come on!” Bryce yelled.

My fear of the robbers left when I saw the barn door open and several alpacas out, humming loudly under the moonlit sky. Bryce flicked on the fluorescent lights inside. We counted the animals and came up five short.

“Count again,” Bryce said.

“Wait,” I said, running toward the back of the barn. “Where’s Whitney?”

Chapter 82

I kicked myself for not figuring it out.
Eddie couldn’t have known about the Morrises’ safe anyway. He had gotten the trailer to steal alpacas.

“Go to Denise’s and call the police,” I said. “I’ll try to follow them.”

I knew Ashley didn’t want to go back to Denise’s place any more than I wanted to chase alpaca thieves on my own, but I wasn’t about to let them get away without a fight. I ran to my ATV in the underbrush and tried to drive around the trees, but the fence blocked me. I circled back, found a small clearing through the woods, and shot out the other side.

The moon made driving over unfamiliar territory a little easier as I sped down the hill to the road. The taillights of the trailer glowed in the distance. The road was so bumpy that there was no way they could drive fast, so I thought I had a chance.

It reminded me of the old joke about a dog chasing a car—what would he do when he caught it? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t about to stop.

When I got to the road I pushed the thumb accelerator all the way and let the four-wheeler go as fast as it could. When the road curved I saw the truck and trailer pulling onto the main road to my left. They were only about a quarter of a mile ahead, so I shifted my weight and kept the accelerator down as I rounded the corner.

Something black darted across my path and I swerved to miss it, but the ATV plunged off the road.

Chapter 83

I knocked lightly at Denise’s,
hoping somebody might be awake. When no one answered, I rang the doorbell.

I looked through the little windows beside the door and saw someone marching down the stairs in a long robe. I backed away as the light came on and the door unlocked. It was Denise’s father, and he was clearly angry.

“Sorry to wake you, but my brother and I are watching the Morrises’ farm and—”

“Haven’t you caused enough trouble?”

“I just need to use your phone—”

“Your mother assured my wife you wouldn’t bother us again, and look at the time!”

“But, Mr. Ruger—”

“Get out of here now! Understand?”

I ran to my ATV without looking back. I roared up the road to the next house and slid to the porch. These people had to be nicer than the Rugers.

An old man came to the door, adjusting his hearing aid.

“Please!” I said. “I need to use your phone. There’s been a robbery.”

His wife joined him, looking suspicious. “Where?”

When I told them, the woman took my arm. “You poor thing. Come on inside.”

Her kindness nearly made me cry as I choked out the details. The man kept adjusting his hearing aid.

“Call the police,” she told him.

A few moments later her husband brought me the phone. “They want to talk to you,” he said.

I told them everything, even why we thought it was Eddie, but they said to save that for the officer who would arrive shortly.

I called Mom, and about half an hour later she showed up with Bryce, who had scratches all over him.

“What happened to you?”

“Had a run-in with a bear . . . or something that crossed the road just as I was about to catch those guys. Plowed into some scrub oak.”

We thanked the old couple profusely, and I followed Mom and Bryce to the farm in time to meet the officer. He said they had found the phone wires cut at the back of the Morris house. He wrote down everything we told him, including what Bryce had learned at Carhardt’s Garage.

The officer pushed his hat back and studied us. “How do you know all that about this Eddie character?”

Bryce hesitated, looking at me, Mom, then the officer. “I overheard him talking about it.”

“When?”

He looked at Mom again.

She sighed. “It’s okay. I know you were at the garage.”

Bryce looked as stunned as I felt. How in the world . . . ?

Bryce told the officer everything. The officer snapped his writing pad shut and put it in his pocket.

“What about Buck?” I said.

The officer turned. “Who’s Buck?”

When I told him he said, “I don’t see how this changes anything. A dog that attacks like that has to be dealt with.”

“But if it’s all a plot—I mean, if we could prove Buck didn’t really bite the girl, wouldn’t that change things?”

The officer nodded. “Sure.”

Chapter 84

Mom told us to go to bed
and that she would tell Pastor Andy we wouldn’t be at church for Ashley’s devotion. I dreamed we were crying at the edge of a grave as Buck’s casket was lowered by two alpacas. Three others held guns on their shoulders and fired into the air seven times. An alpaca 21-gun salute. Mr. Morris and his family wouldn’t even look at Ashley and me.

When I awoke and went downstairs, I found Ashley with Mom, who was on the phone with someone at the sheriff’s office, pleading for Buck’s life.

When Mom hung up she said, “There’s nothing they can do, no one they can talk to until tomorrow morning.”

“But that’s when they’re going to kill Buck!” Ashley said.

“We have to find the jogger,” I said.

“But the police and the paramedic won’t give us the name,” Ashley said.

“Someone else knows who she is.”

“Right,” Ashley said. “Eddie.”

“Someone else.”

“Who?”

“The only other person who saw her. Denise.”